China’s demolition campaign against Christian Cross hits two more churches

BEIJING — In another sign of the authorities’ efforts to contain one of China’s fastest-growing religions, a government demolition campaign against public symbols of the Christian faith has toppled crosses at two more churches in the coastal province of Zhejiang, according to residents there.

Week 13: China arrests 19 more Christians in Beijing

BEIJING (BP)–Despite restrictions due to the Chinese Communist Party’s 90th anniversary, members of Shouwang Church in Beijing continued to meet outdoors July 3, leading to at least 19 arrests.

Church members defied the Chinese government for the 13th consecutive week with the outdoor service. The illegal church, which was evicted from its leased meeting space in April, reported in a translated statement on ChinaAid.org that police were waiting outside the church’s designated worship site, an open-air plaza in northwest Beijing, and “only a few dozen people” were able to meet because, “many believers were under stricter detainment at home. Some individuals were taken to be detained in hotels nearby.”

Week 7: China arrests 25 more Christians

BEIJING (BP)–They came hoping to sing hymns, read Scripture and worship together, but 25 members of Shouwang Church in Beijing were arrested May 22 during the seventh consecutive week that the congregation has bucked the Chinese government and refused to stop meeting.

Few other details of the latest round of arrests were available, but ChinaAid — which monitors religious freedom in China — reported that 18 of the church members had been freed by the end of the day.

In one possible sign that the confrontation is not nearing an end, the last two weeks have seen an increase in the number of church members attending the illegal service. After 13 members were arrested in the fifth week, 20 were arrested last week, and now 25.

China Unlikely to Ease Crackdown on Shouwang House Church

Mission Network News,  China (MNN) ―  Making waves on NPR, CNN, BBC and the New York Times, the story of one persecuted house church has struck international chords.

The Shouwang Church in Beijing has been in a battle of rights with China for years, but the struggle has only just come into focus for most. The 1,000-member church was ousted from its building when their landlord was pressured by officials to evict them. For the six weeks following, Shouwang members have been meeting publicly outside.

China Continues Totalitarians’ Historic Oppression of Christians

by Bruce Walker –

Every incarnation of totalitarianism must eventually war with Christianity. Sometimes this is simply outright persecution of any type of Christianity. More often, though, brutal regimes have manifested their hatred of Christianity by rigorously oppressing genuine and independent Christian faith and replacing it with a state-sponsored and state-controlled “Christianity.”

Writers in imperial Japan before WWII documented this totalitarian control by their own government. In his book Darkness of the Sun: The Story of Christianity in the Japanese Empire, Richard Terrill Baker described the special, virulent hatred the Japanese felt toward Christianity:

A founding document for a new China

by Michael Gerson-

Over the past five Sundays, more than 100 members of the Shouwang Church in Beijing have been detained to prevent them from meeting. It is a confrontation between state and conscience with broad implications for the future of China.

A member of the church, speaking to me anonymously, described the congregation as mainly “intellectuals and professionals.” What began as a Bible study group for university students has grown to 1,000 worshipers — the Chinese equivalent of a mega-church. “The Christians are very serious Christians,” she told me. “They are not political at all. They respect the government, love the country, respect authority. But they want to follow God, to engage in normal Christian practice.” And they find such practice impossible in China’s state-sponsored churches, which were initially designed to keep religion a government-controlled monopoly.

5th week: China arrests more Christians

BEIJING (BP)–At least 13 members of a Beijing church were arrested Sunday, May 8, in the fifth straight week of its defiance of the Chinese government, which continued to force people out of their homes in an effort to pressure the congregation.

One family learned they were being kicked out of their home at 6:40 Sunday morning, before the service even began.

The high-profile clash between the government and Shouwang Church — one of the largest unregistered illegal churches in Beijing — has led to hundreds of house arrests or detentions. More than 500 church members were placed under arrest on Easter weekend alone, prevented from leaving their houses or apartments.

Don’t pick a fight with China’s Christians

China’s security establishment is in a ruthless mood at the moment, taking on the “tall poppies” of the law, the media, the blogosphere and the arts without apparent fear of a backlash from a public that instinctively knows the value of compliance, and the price of defiance.

However, there is another, much larger grouping, that is also heading for a collision with the “Goon State” (that’s the Economist’s) and with potentially much more serious consequences – the millions of Evangelical Christians who choose to worship outside China’s official churches.

For the last four weeks one of Beijing largest unofficial churches, the Shouwang, or WatchTower, church has been in a stand-off with police over its desire to worship free from state control, with hundreds of its members detained and its leaders put under house arrest.

4th week: China arrests 30 church members

BEIJING (BP)— For the fourth week in a row, a Chinese “illegal” church refused Sunday to follow government orders not to meet, and this time at least 31 of its members were arrested.

Once again, reporters were blocked from the site.

The arrests of the members of Beijing’s Shouwang Church in a public square came after church leaders made clear in the preceding days that they would not buckle to pressure from the Communist Party. More than 160 were arrested the first week they tried to meet outdoors, about 50 were arrested the second week and approximately 40 on the third week, Easter Sunday. The declining number of arrests likely is due to the government placing so many other members under house arrest, which prevents them from even leaving their homes. On Easter Sunday, more than 500 church members — including every church staff member, lay leader and choir member — were under house arrest.

Do Not Politicize a Church that is Focused Only on Matters of Faith- Beijing Shouwang house churches’s Response to Global Times’ Commentary

Translated by China Aid Association-

Do Not Politicize a Church that is Focused Only on Matters of Faith

The Global Times newspaper (hereafter, the Times) on April 26 ran a commentary with the headline “Some Churches Should Avoid Becoming Politicized” (hereafter, the text), in which it comments on the recent events in Beijing related to Shouwang Church’s outdoor worship, and just as the title says, it was a well-intentioned reminder to Shouwang. This is the only formal Chinese reporting we have seen in the domestic media of Shouwang Church’s outdoor worship. Therefore, it is necessary that we, as the party involved, provide some clarifications and explanations regarding some of the issues raised in this commentary, so that readers can have a more comprehensive and detailed understanding of this incident.

China’s spreading crackdown target ‘unofficial’ church, More than 100 detained

Unofficial Christian church members and leaders are being targeted by China’s government in its latest clampdown on dissent sparked by calls for “Jasmine” rallies inspired by recent uprisings in the Middle East.

More than 100 members of the Shouwang Protestant church were detained by police in Beijing after they attended an open-air prayer gathering on Sunday.

Shouwang’s Pastor Jin said the authorities had released most of the congregation by Monday night.

Christian Persecution: Chinese expand their tactics, report says

WASHINGTON (BP)–The Chinese government intensified its pressure against Christians in 2010 for a “fifth straight year of escalating persecution,” according to ChinaAid Association, a Christian human rights organization based in Washington.

Beatings, torture, arrests, harassment and church demolitions are among the 90 recorded cases of persecution, a nearly 17 percent increase over 2009, according to a report released by ChinaAid on March 31.

The cases “are just the tip of the iceberg,” according to a ChinaAid news release. “The Chinese government’s stranglehold on information and the authoritarian regime’s other security measures make getting a true picture of the extent of persecution impossible. Nevertheless, the fact that the documented incidences of persecution came from all parts of China and involved people from all levels of society makes the report a useful guide.”

House church in Southwest China raided and Leader arrested

At 5 p.m. local time, March 10, Ms. Liao Zhongxiu, leader of a house church in Qu County, Sichuan Province, was arrested on so called “suspicion of utilizing a cult organization in undermining the implementation of the state law and regulations.” She is currently detained at Qu County Detention Center.

At about 3:30 p.m. local time, September 26, 2010, Youqing Church in Qu County, Dazhou, Sichuan Province was raided by the local Public Security Bureau (PSB). The police officers smashed the items of the church, confiscated books, took people to the local police station and then forced their families to pay money to bail them out. At 5 p.m., September 29, some Christians of the church went to the PSB station to negotiate in the hope of retrieving the confiscated items in accordance with law. It ended up with five of the believers were arrested on the spot and were detained for 15 days.

Chinese Christians Persecuted in Two China Provinces Henan and Jiangsu

(Henan and Jiangsu – March 7, 2011) On the afternoon of March 1, agents from the DSPS (Domestic Security Protection Squad) of Xiayi County, Henan Province came to a house church in Hanzhen Town and took away three Christians, two of whom were women. The agents seized copies of the Bible, over 1,000 yuan of cash and copies of a book titled “A Stormy Life” by Zhang Mingxuan, president of the Chinese House Church Alliance.  After the DSPS agents conducted an interrogation that lasted over three hours, they released the three Christians and warned them not to associate with Pastor Zhang Mingxuan.  The agents also accused them of believing in a cult.

At 7 p.m. on March 4, Public Security Bureau agents from Suqian, Jiangsu Province went to Nanyang, Henan Province and took Pastor Shi Enhao, vice-president of the Chinese House Church Alliance, back to Jiangsu for detention. The latest update is that he was released on March 6.

Chinese Christian dissidents hear Obama’s ‘silence’

By Ben Birnbaum, The Washington Times, February 3, 2011-

Leading Chinese Christian dissidents blasted the Obama administration Thursday, saying it had done virtually nothing to advance the cause of religious freedom.

“For the past two years, in public it’s been almost dead silence,” said Bob Fu, founder and president of the China Aid Association, an international Chirstian human rights group.

He said private pleas to State Department officials to publicly mention names of jailed and “disappeared” Christian leaders had fallen on deaf ears.

Pope hits at China’s curbs on religion in Christmas message

AFP, Dec.25, 2010 –

VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI rapped China for its curbs on religion and freedom of conscience in his Christmas message Saturday, reflecting the tense relations between the Vatican and Beijing.

“May the birth of the Saviour strengthen the spirit of faith, patience and courage of the faithful of the Church in mainland China, that they may not lose heart through the limitations imposed on their freedom of religion and conscience but, persevering in fidelity to Christ and his Church, may keep alive the flame of hope,” he said.

House Church in East China Raided, Members Detained

ChinaAid, November 13, 2010 –

ANHUI — At 7:00 a.m. on November 12, 2010, Bozhou Municipal Public Security Bureau in Anhui and Bozhou Bureau of Religion raided a house church On Qingming Street.

More than 10 believers were taken away by the officials; five of them were detained and were not released until that afternoon. Without going through any paperwork, the government officials confiscated items belonging to the church.

Christians come under attack in China as number of independent believers grows

By Bill Schiller, Asia Bureau, The Toronto Star, Canada, Aug. 8, 2010 –

LINFEN, CHINA— Old Wang was fast asleep in his bed when the mob arrived.

It was 3 a.m. one Sunday last September.

“People shook me and told me. ‘Get up. Get outside. Hurry up!’ ”

What he witnessed on the grounds of the Gospel Shoes Factory – a rural Christian community where he lived and worked with 60 others near here – was complete chaos: a raging mob of more than 200 men were pushing their way through the darkness with flashlights, wooden clubs, bricks, hoes and pieces of metal, smashing everything and anyone in their path.

A perimeter wall had been toppled. The main gate was smashed. Men were pouring through it.

Behind them came a roaring bulldozer, then an excavator.

As Wang stared in disbelief, he was clubbed over the head and trampled to the ground, his face streaming with blood.

Then someone hurled a brick at him, fracturing his leg.

As he lay there he could hear a man yelling, “Beat them. Beat them as hard as you like. I’ll take responsibility for everything.”

To his amazement, and the amazement of other eyewitnesses, the mob was led by a local Communist Party official backed up by uniformed police.

They were clearly on a mission. But what that mission was, wasn’t clear to those under attack.

It was, in fact, one of the more violent flare-ups in China’s ongoing campaign against Christians, a community that – according to researchers – exceeds 100 million and is growing rapidly.

That growth has stoked concern and even alarm among some government officials, who see the spread of Christianity as a threat to their authority.

Officials here took the threat seriously and decided to act – with force.

The Gospel Shoes Factory had all its papers in order. It had a building permit. Its business license was current.

But it also had a church.

China’s constitution guarantees freedom of religion, but it comes with a catch: every church must register with the government and submit to control by the Communist Party of China.

The Gospel Shoes church was not registered: it was what is known in China as a “house church.”

The government maintains the same registration requirements for China’s four other “officially approved” religions: Buddhism, Daoism, Islam and Catholicism. Each is assigned a government-appointed body that oversees the group’s activities throughout the country.

But Gospel Shoes was operating without such oversight. As a consequence it was deemed illegal.

So over the course of the next few hours, under the direction of the Communist Party and local police, the mob bulldozed the factory and church into the ground.

In the process they killed livestock, looted appliances and wounded 30 members of the community, seven seriously.

Most were taken to hospital by tractor and private cars.

“As long as I have lived, I have never seen brutality like this, “ says Old Wang, a Christian man in his 40s dressed in trousers and a t-shirt, who asks that his first name not be used for fear of reprisals.

“My father was a soldier in the People’s Liberation Army,” he says. “I was raised to respect authority. But how can I, after this?”

The Star also viewed copies of more than 20 other individual, eyewitness accounts signed or stamped with official thumbprints corroborating Wang’s account.

“This was the most violent attack on a house church in China in a decade,” says Li Fangping, a Beijing lawyer who later defended one of the church leaders.

It was also a sign, says Li, who is also a Christian, that the government has grown frightened of the house church movement – those churches outside the government’s grip that are growing with increasing speed.

“The government is beginning to realize that they’re beyond their control,” he says.

Some academics who study religious movements in China agree.

Protestant Christianity especially, they say, is experiencing “explosive” and even “exponential” growth in China, both in the countryside as well as in major cities: from Heilongjiang province in the north to Guangdong province in the south – from cities like Shanghai and Chengdu, to Beijing and beyond.

When Mao Zedong first took control of the country in 1949, there were just 1 million Christians in China. Today, while it is difficult to calculate a precise number, many now estimate that number to have grown by a hundred-fold.

By comparison, the Communist Party itself has just 70 million registered members.

And the numbers of Christians are growing. Some academic studies place that growth at 5 to 7 per cent annually. But most feel that pace has now accelerated.

“The house churches have been growing so fast,” eminent American sociologist Richard Madsen told an audience in Philadelphia last year, “that the government can neither stop them, nor ignore them.”

What happened in Linfen could be seen as a one-off – a rare and violent reaction by local officials in the far-off countryside responding to a unique local circumstance.

But evidence from media reports, rights organizations and interviews with religious leaders and believers across the country, suggest it is not.

Instead, what happened in Linfen is only the most egregious example of a pattern of state surveillance, harassment, intimidation and threat that has increased over the past 18 months, as the Communist Party of China struggles to come to terms with what some say is a difficult truth: its policy on religion is failing.

”The policy is, on its own terms, a complete failure,” according to Prof. Madsen, who has studied religion in China for more than 20 years. And there are signs, he says, that the Chinese government is realizing it.

Communist theory has long held that religion is nothing more than “superstition and foolishness,” and that as China prospers and becomes more modern, religion will fade away.

But that hasn’t happened.

Instead, religious belief is growing.

In an age when China has abandoned Communism in favour of market principles, more and more people are turning to religion, “looking for hope, and a better life,” says Madsen, head of sociology at the University of California, San Diego.

Party members also confide that Christianity’s rapid rise has raised concern within the Communist leadership itself: a new set of closed-door conferences is being held in Beijing and the Party is commissioning new research on how to respond.

This isn’t purely about religion, of course.

What troubles China’s central government isn’t belief – but the fact that the house churches are growing into a potentially formidable force with leadership, organizational structures, independent financing and a loyal and growing following.

It is these kinds of characteristics, they fear, that could build into an alternative belief system in opposition to the government.

“Of course that’s why they’re wary,” says Madsen.

Back in Linfen, the local authorities were very wary – and far from finished.

After crushing the Gospel Shoes factory, they didn’t stop there.

When a well-known, local preacher, Yang Rongli, dared to mount a day of prayer and protest at the site and threaten to take the church’s grievances all the way to the central government in Beijing, she was arrested with four other church elders.

Yang, a university graduate and fourth generation Christian, was leader of Linfen’s Golden Lamp Church – the mother church of Gospel Shoes – believed to be the biggest house church in all of China, boasting 50,000 followers.

In 2008, Yang and church elders had raised the equivalent of $1.5 million in donations from church followers to build the towering, eight-storey, Golden Lamp Church.

In size, it rivaled all local Communist Party buildings .

As Yang was being arrested on her way to Beijing on Sept. 25 last year, hundreds of armed, uniformed and riot police swooped down and surrounded the Golden Lamp.

“I was inside,” says one church elder who has still managed to elude arrest. “There were about 100 of us in there. And we all knelt to pray.”

“No one slept that night,” he adds. “We were just too nervous.”

The standoff lasted 24 hours.

At 4 p.m. the next day, armed police moved in, took control of the church and arrested more leaders.

Following a one-day trial, Yang Rongli and four other church officials were sentenced to three to seven years in prison for constructing a church on agricultural land and for mounting a protest that had blocked traffic.

Five other church officials were also sentenced – without trial – to two years of “re-education” in a government-run labour camp.

Today the Golden Lamp Church, still under state control, faces a demolition order. Just as they crushed the Gospel Shoes complex, authorities intend to reduce the Golden Lamp to rubble.

Official papers have been issued, but no date has been set.

Zhang Kai, one of the defence lawyers at the trial, has appealed the demolition order but the appeal was rejected.

In July, Zhang traveled to Linfen, some 800 km. southwest of Beijing, to address court officials directly.

But police at the courthouse blocked him from entering.

Zhang showed them his lawyer’s license – but that was useless.

“They said, ‘You’re Zhang Kai. You’re not allowed in here. Those are our orders,’” says Zhang.

Still, Christian believers here remain defiant.

“Even if they do destroy the church, it won’t destroy our faith,” says the elder who was trapped inside the church the night of its siege.

“We believe in what we believe,” he says…….. (more details from The Toronto Star)

4-year old Boy Seized in China’s Raid on House Church Sunday Gathering, 7 Members Detained

ChinaAid, May 12, 2010 –

HENAN — On the morning of April 25, 2010, seven or eight police officers raided the Sunday gathering of Christians of Chimei Town House Church in Neixiang county, Nanyang, Henan province. They photographed, fingerprinted, and registered all the believers there, then took away nine people, without any written authorization Later, seven of the members were respectively placed on 5-day, 10-day and 15-day administrative detentions. Their families have not received Notices of Detention, nor have the police given receipts for the “living expense” payments they demanded and received from the families.

That morning, 20 to 30 Christians were holding Sunday worship at the residence of Sun Bingwu in Jiadao Village, Chimei Town. At about 10:30 AM, as the service was coming to an end, seven or eight people came in and claimed they were police officers from Neixiang County Public Security Bureau and Chimei Police Station. They were not in police uniform, but they showed their identifications and put a halt to the meeting.

After they took photos of the site of the gathering and recorded the information of the Christians there, they took nine people to the Chimei Town Police Station. These people included one man (Chen Fengming, the church’s speaking pastor) seven women (Qin Gaiying, Bie Xiumin, Zhang Xiugai, Chai Aiqin, He Xiaocai, Liu Xiue, and Wang Yunge) and Bie Xiumin’s 4-year-old son.

That afternoon, the police brought Bie Xiumin’s mother-in-law to the police station to take her 4-year-old grandson home. He cried when they were leaving. Mercifully the police released his mother so she could go home with him.

Bie Xiumin and her little son were the only ones allowed to go free without a greater cost than trauma and being illegally seized……. (more details from China Aid)

China Church Banned in Former Sichuan Earthquake Disaster Zone

ChinaAid, March 1, 2010 –

SICHUAN—  Made famous by the devastating Sichuan Earthquake of 2008, which leveled homes and killed thousands of Chinese citizens, An County is no stranger to disaster and repression. In the peaceful village of Hongshi in An County, faithful house church Christians have met in the home of pastor Gan Yonggui for fellowship and prayer for many years. House Church Christians were instrumental in providing care and comfort for fellow villagers, who lost children, parents, and relatives in the quake. In that time of crisis, the Chinese government seemed to soften on some controls, allowing a few faith organizations to provide relief. Just two years later, their goodwill toward the faithful seems to have dissipated entirely.

On February 8, 2010, officials from the Sichuan Bureau of Ethnicity and Religious Affairs came to the home of Pastor Gan Yonggui in Anxian. They issued a formal notice of administrative punishment, announcing their decision to ban the house church Christian fellowship meeting in his home.

Read the full translation of the Anxian Bureau of Ethnicity and Religious Affairs’ Notice, issued February 8, 2010…… (more details from China Aid)

60 Christians Arrested, One Severely Injured in Central China

China Aid, Feb. 22, 2010-

HENAN— For many women, a husband’s profession is simply a means of support. For the wives of Chinese house church pastors, their husband’s work can lead to devastating pain and physical suffering. For Chen Hailan, wife of Pastor Guo Quanyou, it meant broken vertebrae, a concussion, and paralyzing pain. On October 19, 2009, sixty Christians were holding a time of worship and fellowship at Pastor Guo Quanyou’s house in Neixiang. At about 10:00 AM, 18 local police besieged the house and arrested and interrogated the Christians. The police charged them with “disturbing social orders under the name of religious activities” and put five brothers into ten-days administrative detention each and imposed a fine of several thousand RMB.

On October 30th, the Neixiang police station increased the punishment of the church leader Guo Quanyou, enhancing his sentence to one year Re-education through Labor and a 2,000 RMB fine. When the police came to brother Guo’s home to arrest him, they brutally pushed Guo’s wife Chen Hailan to the floor. The impact caused a concussion and broken her “12th vertebra”. Chen Hailan continues to suffer from severe migraines, and can barely move her back from the pain.

China Aid condemns this attack on the innocent Neixiang Christians, and demands to know how a peaceful Christian gathering in a home can “disturb the social order.” We urge the Neixiang police to release Guo Quanyou, who is still being held, and to redress the fines and physical grievances against the Guo family.

We call on the international community to pray for the house church in Neixiang, Henan province, and for the release and healing of Guo Quanyou and his wife Chen Hailan.

– China Aid

Statment: Why We Refuse to Join in the China State-managed “Three-Self” Church

Excerpt of “Confession of Faith”, by Persecuted Shuozhou Church, Via China Aid, Feb. 8, 2009-

SHANXI–In the aftermath following the detention of six Shuozhou pastors and the destruction of Brother Gao Mao’s home, members of Shuozhou have issued a Confession of Faith, affirming their doctrine and taking a stand in defense of their faith.

(Excerpt)

3.    Why We Refuse to Join in the “Three-Self” Church

3.1. Different heads: the head of the “Three-Self” church is the government; they administrate the church based on religion policies. The head of the house church is Jesus Christ; we administrate the church in accordance to the Bible.

3.2. Different ways of appointing the clergies: The clergies of the “three-self” churches are appointed by the bureau of religious affairs; the house churches select clergies who are anointed by the Holy Spirit, equipped with the truth and spiritual gifts, recognized by the churches and bear spiritual fruits.

3.3. Different foundations: The three-self church is the product of the three-self revolution, which was initiated by Wu Yaozong, a social-evangelist and a few non-Christians.

3.4. Division of Opinions: The three-self church supports the unification of the government and the church; they choose to make compromise with the government’s policies on religions and participate in political movements. The house church, however, support the division of the government the church; they obey the government under the biblical principles. When the two conflicts, they choose to “obey God not men” and take up the Cross to follow God, regardless of the cost.

3.5. Different Missions: The three-self churches limit themselves to hold religious activities only at the registered churches. The house churches share the Gospel and nurture church members in diligence; they strive and develop in hardship.

– From China Aid

6 Christian Leaders Detained, Pastor’s Home Destroyed in Central China

China Aid, January 28, 2010 –

SHANXI— On November 17, 2009, nearly 600 Christian brothers and sisters gathered together in Yangshupo Village in Shuozhou City, Shanxi Province. In the afternoon of November 18th, armed police guards arrived at the gathering site and besieged the group. The police detained all 500 house church attenders on the site for several hours, before arresting Ren Boqing, Jia Jun and Gao Wenjun, church members who drove vans to help bring many of the Christians to the church meeting.

Ren Boqing and Jia Jun were both charged with criminal detention for ‘evil cult involvement,’ a typical sentence for house church believers on November 19th; Gao Wenjun was arrested, but released on bail soon after, and is now awaiting news of criminal trial. Two locals, Ma Fei and Lin Zhengyuan, were additionally arrested on November 19, 2009, and have been criminally detained since for allegedly “participating in a cult.”

Brother Gao Mao, the group leader, was seized and immediately placed in criminal detention at the Detention Center of Pinglu District in Shuozhou. On November 20th, more than 400 police ransacked Mao’s home, stealing both valuables and daily necessities, such as blankets, food, oil, and removing Bibles and Hymnals from the site. They destroyed his entire property during the raid, inflicting close to 1.4 million RMB in damages and loss. In an attempt to cover-up the utter destruction of Gao’s home, the police immediately planted trees among the debris on the ground to conceal their tracks……. (more details from China Aid)